Murder or self-defense: Jury weighs evidence

Kim Smith

Monday, Aug. 20, 2001 | 9:07 a.m.

A Clark County jury was to begin weighing evidence today in the murder trial of a Las Vegas man who claims he killed two men in self-defense four years ago.

Darion Daniel faces two counts each of attempted murder and murder and one count of burglary in the January 1997 killings.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Daniel could receive the death penalty.

Prosecutors Christopher Lalli and Robert Daskas allege Daniel, 30, walked into an apartment and opened fire on the occupants as they sat watching television.

Fred Washington, 24, died on the couch and Mark Payne, 25, was killed as he ran through the kitchen trying to escape. Two other men, Antoine Hall and Tehran Woods, 24, were shot multiple times, but survived.

The prosecutors presented evidence that Daniel was either upset with his friends because they wouldn't give him $10 for drugs or he believed Washington had killed a friend of his.

Defense attorneys JoNell Thomas and Robert Langford tried to convince jurors during their closing arguments Friday that Daniel acted in self-defense, after Washington pointed a weapon at him and Hall lunged for him.

Daniel knew of several violent incidents the men had been involved in previously and had every reason to believe his life was in danger, Thomas said.

The attorneys reminded the jurors that a cocked gun was found just below Washington's body. The position of his hand indicates he had been holding it just prior to death, they said.

Hall and Woods testified the gun was one they retrieved from a closet after Daniel fled, but the defense attorneys noted no blood was found near the closet, and both were wounded.

Langford replayed the 911 call Hall and Woods made that evening and asked the jurors to listen for the sound of them rummaging through the closet or cocking the semiautomatic weapon. No such sounds could be heard.

Lalli and Daskas said it is clear from crime scene photos that Washington was watching TV when he died, just as Hall and Woods testified.

"He posed absolutely no danger to the defendant, absolutely none," Lalli said. "This was an execution plain and simple."

Hall was shot in the back of the shoulder as he dived over a loveseat, Lalli said. Had he truly been lunging for Daniel, the wound would be in front.

Further proof Daniel didn't act in self-defense is a bullet hole in the windshield of a car outside, Daskas said.

Daniel shot at a fifth person in the apartment, Sadie Parker, as she was running away and the bullet struck the car instead, the prosecutor said.

Daniel's only motive in shooting at Parker was to eliminate witnesses, Daskas said.